Michelle McCool appeared as a guest on the latest installment of the INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet podcast for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling.
During the discussion, the women’s wrestling legend spoke about being in the 2023 Women’s Royal Rumble match, the controversy surrounding the infamous “Piggy James” storyline, being forced to do “redo matches” at WWE tapings and more.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview sent to us by Chris Van Vliet directly where McCool touches on these topics with her thoughts.
On being in the 2023 Women’s Royal Rumble: “Yeah, that was fun. That was interesting. I’ve told the story before. They called me on very short notice. I think it was eight, nine days. Asked me if I wanted to do it and I was like, Oh shoot. I mean, yes I’ll work out. But I’m sure you’ve heard it a million times, ring shape is a whole different ball game. I was in for a few minutes. I think at one point I was kind of in a corner with either Piper or Naomi and I was like give me a second y’all, I’m tired. But, yeah, that was super fun. I knew I was going to be there with the kids watching, my dad was there, and it was something different. They said I could wrestle in my sweatpants and Uggs, I should have been doing it my entire career. I was like I am in. Honestly, it was a thing where Mark and I talked. Our daughter was kind of struggling, she’s a perfectionist, and if she can’t do something on the first try she gets so mad. So it was a kind of a lesson. I said, You know what? I’m just gonna let her know this is something that mommy is kind of a little bit terrified to do on such short notice. I don’t know if I’m ready to do it, but you know what, we can be scared and brave at the same time and go out and do it. So it was kind of a lesson I was trying to build in for her. Don’t really know that she got that, she just loves WWE period. Not even sure she was cheering for me. But that was part of the reasoning as well.”
On the “Piggy James” storyline: “I give credit to this day, I said this to somebody the other day and I said it to her. But the whole Piggy James storyline, me at heart hated it, just because of what it was. You’re bullying somebody that they’re supposedly overweight and that has never been me. Every week I’d go up to her, ‘Mickie, I’m so sorry. This is what they want us to say.’ Complete professional. Not once did she try to change things, which often girls did. Not once. She’s like, ‘No, it’s good. It’s cool.’ She knew that took two to tango. She knew what her role was. She knew what our role was, and she really, I think, put us on the map with that storyline.”
On the pitch for the storyline: “I don’t remember the original pitch. A lot of times back then things started with personal digs at somebody, or maybe somebody got in trouble and they wanted to make fun. I don’t know what it was, but it just came out of the blue. Layla and I were stupid. We acted dumb together, we said stupid things, we had a lot of fun. But when that storyline came about I was like oh, this is just mean. But it did get us over and I give all the credit in the world to Mickie for that. She easily could have said, ‘Guys, this is too much, too far, I’m not doing it.’ She was already over, but she didn’t [object]. She knew how the business worked, it got her more over, and she helped us.”
On being in the first-ever women’s table match: “1000% I was proud of that Tables match. It was not only the first, it was fun. Earlier in the day we were walking up the ramp and I remember somebody saying, ‘The table is fine, it’s gonna break. There’s two of them, right? There’s Layla and Michelle.’ Yeah, no problem. That sucker did not break. Table would not put us over, didn’t like us either. So we hit and I’m like, oh gosh. I look back up, Nattie, climbs back up and it couldn’t have turned off better with her going back up for the second time. But yeah, that was a big moment.”
On having to redo matches: “There was one point where Victoria and I had a match. We came backstage, getting changed, and they came back and said, ‘Hey, y’all need to come back out and do your match again.’ We’re like, ‘What do you mean come back out and do our match again?’ They’re like, ‘Your punches and kicks look better than the guys.’ We’re like, ‘Wait a minute. We have to go redo our match because our punches look too good? That doesn’t sound like an us problem.’ Chris Jericho at the time, he stood up for us, and he said, ‘If the guy’s punches don’t look as good, that is not the girl’s fault. That’s not their fault.’ Regardless, we had to go out there and re-do our match, and there was a period of about three or four weeks that girls couldn’t punch or kick.”
